Phaedrus Quotes

That it is unwise to be heedless ourselves while we are giving advice to others, I will show in a few lines.

Ill have I brook’d that nobler foes
Should triumph o’er my dying woes:
But, scorn of nature, forced to lie
And take thy taunts, is twice to die.

Come of it what may, as Sinon said.

By this story [The Fox and the Raven] it is shown how much ingenuity avails, and how wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

No one returns with good-will to the place which has done him a mischief.

Submit to the present evil, lest a greater one befall you.

"I knew that before you were born." Let him who would instruct a wiser man consider this as said to himself.

Fortes indigne tuli
Mihi insultare: te, nature dedecus,
Quod ferre certe cogor, bis videor mori.

A fly bit the bare pate of a bald man, who in endeavouring to crush it gave himself a hard slap. Then said the fly jeeringly, "You wanted to revenge the sting of a tiny insect with death; what will you do to yourself, who have added insult to injury?"

Jupiter has loaded us with a couple of wallets: the one, filled with our own vices, line he has placed at our backs; the other, lie heavy with those of others, he has hung before.

Once lost, Jupiter himself cannot bring back opportunity.

Whoever has even once become notorious by base fraud, even if he speaks the truth, gains no belief.

A mountain was in labour, sending forth dreadful groans, and there was in the region the highest expectation. After all, it brought forth a mouse.

He who covets what belongs to another deservedly loses his own.

Non semper ea sunt quae videntur.